|
|
Home Care Can Play Key Role in Population Health Initiatives, Experts Say
McKnight’s Home Care | By Liza Berger
Population health is a major component of value-based care today — and a top-of-mind concept for healthcare organizations and payers. Home care providers can help propel this concept forward, according to Andy Edeburn, consultant with Elder Dynamics, and Lindsey Sand, vice president of population health for Knute Nelson, who spoke recently to McKnight’s Home Care in a Newsmakers podcast.
“Now is the time to truly jump on these opportunities to start the dialogue or be a part of the dialogue,” Sand said.
Population health, which focuses in part on managing chronic diseases in a broader population, became an important part of healthcare after the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act, which helped to move healthcare from a fee-for-service model to a value-based payment model, Edeburn explained. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services believes every beneficiary should be in a value-based arrangement by 2030, Edeburn said.
If a provider is taking Medicare, “there is a driving national imperative around moving toward value-based thinking,” he said.
Because of the desire of consumers to age in place at home, home care has a unique role to play in emphasizing population health and value-based care, Sand said. She talked about how Knute Nelson, a provider of home care and other services in Minnesota, is leading a new value-based arrangement involving eight partners, including two health plans, across 43 communities in rural parts of the state.
Read Full Article
|
|
Expanded HHVBP Model: PIPR and New Resources Available
Available in iQIES: Expanded HHVBP Model Pre-Implementation Performance Reports
As the expanded HHVBP Model prepares to start the first performance year on January 1, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the November 2022 Pre-Implementation Performance Report (PIPR) to all active home health agencies (HHAs). The PIPRs provide HHAs with data on their quality measure performance used in the expanded HHVBP Model, with comparison to HHAs nationally within peer cohorts. Additionally, the CY 2023 Home Health (HH) Prospective Payment System (PPS) final rule amended the Model baseline year from CY 2019 to CY 2022 starting in the CY 2023 performance year to enable CMS to measure competing HHAs performance on benchmarks and achievement thresholds that are more current. The PIPRs provide a preview of where your agency’s performance falls in regard to the new baseline year, in advance of the release of the first Interim Performance Reports (IPRs) in July 2023.
The November 2022 PIPR is available to download from the Internet Quality Improvement Evaluation System (iQIES). Instructions on how to access the PIPRs are available on the Expanded HHVBP Model webpage, under Model Reports.
To assist HHAs in understanding the purpose, content, and use of the PIPRs, the HHVBP Technical Assistance (TA) team created an on-demand video and downloadable resource, “Introduction to the Pre-Implementation Performance Report (PIPR)”, available on the Expanded HHVBP Model webpage under Model Reports. The video is also available on the Expanded HHVBP Model YouTube channel.
There will also be a live streaming event introducing the PIPRs at 11:00 AM ET on November 17, 2022. Attendees will have the opportunity to submit questions during the webinar. Click here to register for the event: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bz6_WZm2RFm1YgRTerQi6g.
For questions, please email the HHVBP Model Help Desk at [email protected].
New Resource Available – Quality Improvement Self-Assessment for Your HHA
The HHVBP TA Team is pleased to announce the availability a new organizational self-assessment resource, Quality Measure Category-Focused Performance Improvement. This resource provides a brief, self-guided, performance improvement exercise designed for HHA teams, based on structured review of expanded HHVBP Model performance data by measure category. Included in this resource is a template that will help teams create data visualizations that will highlight patterns in measure performance by category. Teams can use results for planning performance improvement activities.
This resource is available on the Expanded HHVBP Model webpage under the “Quality Improvement” section. |
Our Personality Will Affect Our Dying Process
By Barbara Karnes
I believe we have the right to be told about our disease, its progression, the options of care, and the probability of being cured vs. not cured. If it is not curable, what kind of quality can be expected?
Being told we can’t be fixed gives us an opportunity to live until we die and in a manner of our own choice based on fact. BUT no one can be so specific as to say exactly how long someone has to live. There are too many variables.
We have limited control over the time that we die:
- That control affects how long our experience is going to be.
- We will deal with the challenge of dying in the same way we have dealt with other challenges in our life and that will affect how long we have.
- Our personality doesn’t change as we approach death. It actually intensifies its characteristics.
We cannot put a number on how long someone has to live. There are so many factors that affect the time of our gradual death that the closest anyone can get to determining how long the dying process will take is months, weeks, days or hours.
Numbers don’t work when they are based only on lab reports and disease markers. The medical findings contribute to a prognosis but the personality of the person will affect the actual time of death.
To get a gauge of how long someone is going to live once they have been told they can’t be fixed we need to closely examine these things: how they have met other challenges in their life; the kind of personality they have (active, passive, controlling, argumentative, easy going, protective) and to acknowledge that they have a small amount of control over the exact moment they take their last breath. |
Report: Wages Up, Turnover Down In Home-Based Care
Home Health Care News | By Patrick Filbin
Hourly pay rates for licensed practical nurses (LPNs) at home health agencies increased nearly 10% from 2021 to 2022, while turnover rates fell slightly from last year.
That’s according to the latest Home Care Salary & Benefits report from Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Service.
The Oakland, New Jersey-based company provides salary and benefits studies — along with custom marketplace studies — for the health care industry. The report is published in cooperation with the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC).
The latest report is based on responses from more than 860 home health agencies across the U.S.
The national average hourly rate for LPNs at home health agencies increased by 9.57% in 2022, up to $27.74.
California holds the highest average hourly rate for LPNs at $34.27 per hour, while Missouri holds the lowest rates at $23.58 per hour.
Accounting for nearly 60 job titles, LPNs in home health care saw the single highest year-to-year jump. Home care aides saw an 8.96% increase and administrative assistants saw an 8.57% increase.
At the same time, executive directors and CEOs saw an average wage increase of 3.34%, up from $237,194 to $245,128 per year.
Physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech pathologists saw 2022 hourly wages of $49.38, $44.69 and $45.00, respectively.
Wages have steadily increased in home health care since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As droves of nurses and home care aides left the industry, agencies have had to increase wages and incentivize workers to stay, join and even come back to the workforce.
Read Full Article |
VA Support for Family Caregivers
November is National Family Caregivers Month. In the words of former first lady and caregiver advocate, Rosalynn Carter, “There are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers."
What Can I Do?
One place to start is with a Caregiver Self-Assessment. Complete the assessment to see what services or supports you may need. VA provides support and resources to family caregivers, including:
Learn about Services and Supports for Veterans
Many services offered by VA may benefit Veterans and family caregivers. All services are based on Veterans’ eligibility, clinical need for the service and service availability.
Other VA and non-VA Resources
|
|
|
|
|
<< first < Prev 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 Next > last >>
|
|
Page 152 of 352 |
